Kay woke up, once again groggy and confused. This time at least, it didn’t feel like a tiny person inside his skull was trying to beat their way out with their fists. “I really need to stop waking up like this.” He muttered to himself.

“Then maybe you should work on paying better attention to your surroundings.”

Kay looked over to see Eleniah sitting next to his bed. “Hey.”

“Dammit, Kay.” she stared at him, her emotions running across her face. After a moment of sitting there, looking at him, she sighed and dropped her head forward.

“I’m sorry.”

“You better damn well be!” She hissed, her gaze snapping back up to meet his. “When you’re fully healed, I’m destroying you with training, you understand? You got taken in broad daylight like some kind of amateur!”

“I’m sorry.” He repeated. “I… I got careless, I guess.”

“Which is exactly the problem. So we’re going to train you until you’re never careless again!” She leaned into his face as she emphasized the last half of the sentence. “Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” She stared at him for a bit longer, then huffed as she stood up. “I’m going to make some food while you get up. Do not stress yourself.”

Kay slowly got out of bed as she left. His arms felt weak like he’d been working out for hours right before this. He very slowly put on some loose clothing, then made his way to the kitchen.

Eleniah glanced over her shoulder as he entered. “The only reason we didn’t start training you on avoiding more ambushes as soon as you woke up was because I don’t want you re-breaking your arms.” She pointed into the dining room with her spatula. “Sit.”

“Okay.” Kay lowered himself into a chair and waited, thinking about everything that happened.

Eleniah came in a few minutes later with enough food for three people. It looked like a simple breakfast, but Kay knew from experience that it would be tasty.

“Eat.” She set down all of the food in front of him. “You need extra food to recover from the level of healing they used to fix you.”

“I have a question about that. Why didn’t they just heal me all the way up?”

“If you rely too much on magical healing, you come to depend on it, mentally and physically. If you suddenly don’t have a healer for some reason, you’re fucked.” She nodded at his arms. “So in cases like yours, they heal you up to the point of being mostly functional for day-to-day stuff, then let your body do the rest naturally. Now stop talking and eat.”

She came back out a little later with her own plate, and they ate in silence. Even with Kay feeling bad about what happened and Eleniah being understandably mad at him, the silence wasn’t awkward. Eleniah finished first, and she watched him as he ate.

When Kay finished the last of his food, he looked up at her. “What’s up?” He asked, seeing something in her gaze.

“I think I’ve been going about this backward.” She seemed unhappy with something. “I’ve been assuming you’re going to stay with me when I leave.”

“What? Why would I leave you? And why are you leaving?”

She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “Let me… let me start at the beginning. I told you about my cousin, right?”

“Just that she was a scary powerful Water Mage and Water Manipulator in an island nation.”

“Yeah, that’s her, and she’s...” She glanced away. “Maybe that’s not far back enough?”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Kay asked her.

“I want to explain how everything came to a head in the way it did, and I feel like you need to know more of my background to get there.” She tapped on the table for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face. “Alright. I’ll start farther back. I’m Eleniah Selthoran, from Clan Selthoran on the island of Sel. My clan has been in charge of Sel for generations. I received a lot of high-quality testing to see what I could excel at and then high-quality training to make sure I excelled. I showed affinity for Teacher classes and worked hard to become great at it. I eventually became the main teacher for children on the island. And then my cousin was born.” She smiled a little. “She was so cute as a baby and a child. She always wanted to learn more and more, and she was so interested in everything I had to say. She followed me around, asking me all kinds of questions and demanding I tell her stories about heroes and historical figures.” She sighed. “And then she got her first class.”

“Did something bad happen?”

“Huh? Oh, no, it was fine. She became a Novice Water Mage, which everyone was happy with. And then she learned three spells and got to tier two in less than a day.”

Kay gaped at her in shock. “Less than a day?”

“Yes. It’s not unheard of, but you generally have to be some kind of prodigy to level that fast. Which she is.” Eleniah smiled wryly. “Affinity and talent are important because it gives you a path to follow that you can do well on, right? But there are all kinds of people that just coast on their talent and get destroyed by people who just work hard. Alahna wasn’t one of those. She’s a genius, but she works herself to the bone. She never stops pushing. And when she was young, the clan saw how talented she was and how hard she worked and decided she would be our next leader. And as our next leader, she needed the best teachers and instructors we could find to help that potential and drive reach even farther.”

“So they grabbed you?”

Eleniah laughed. “No, I wasn’t even one of the candidates. I taught children who didn’t have a class yet, not young adults carrying the clan’s future. But then Alahna insisted.” She leaned back in her chair and repeated in another voice, “’ Eleniah is my favorite teacher! She makes everything so easy to understand, and she knows all the important political things!’” She laughed and shook her head. “I didn’t know all the ‘important political things,' but I did know enough to help a young woman seeking to get more powerful navigate the different factions that ruled the islands in those days. She insisted and insisted, and I became her ‘Chief Political Adviser’ or something equally stupid; I don’t remember the exact title. So there I was, a teacher of children being dragged on The Adventures of Alahna Selthoran in her Journey to Power.” She sighed.

“You didn’t like it?”

She smiled, and it was a little sad and wistful. “No, the opposite, really. I loved it. My first class was Novice Brawler, which my parents and the clan thought was ‘too barbaric,’ so I never got any training in it. But anyone traveling around adventuring needs to know how to fight, and the combat trainer that the clan brought in for Alahna thought leaving a good class like main to rot was wasteful. And with him teaching me, I learned that I was a damn good Brawler.” She held up a fist and grinned. “And that’s when I learned that I loved being an adventurer.”

Kay smiled back, but it dropped from his face a moment later. “Obviously, something happened, though, or you’d still be with her.”

“It wasn’t just one thing.” She set her hand back on the table with a thump. “It was what Alahna became, really.”

“Someone you couldn’t support?”

“No, not that. Queen.”

Kay froze in place. “What?”

“My cousin Alahna is now Queen Alahna Selthoran of the Seramist Isles.” She looked at Kay contritely. “Technically, I’m royalty. Or at least nobility.”

Kay slowly blinked a few times as he looked at her. “That’s… a bit of a shock. But why did her becoming Queen have to do with you leaving?”

“As we adventured around and solved people’s problems, Alahna became more and more popular with the people and even some of the rulers of the islands surrounding Sel. A few weeks after the clan finally demanded that she come and take up leadership, one of our neighbors came and asked if they could please have Alahna as their leader too. And then Alahna, as leader of Clan Selthoran, was in charge of two islands. Then four, then six. And then some other leader with more than one island under them decided they couldn’t have Alahna as a competitor and declared war. When the dust settled, Alahna had all of their islands underneath her too, and she decided to form a kingdom.” Eleniah stared off into the distance with a frown on her face. “And that’s when all the dumb politics became so much worse. I stopped being Alahna’s adviser long before then since there were much better options, but I was still her cousin. People who wanted influence or to manipulate the Queen or whatever started flocking to me, trying to use me. And Alahna started using me too.” Her frown deepened, and a touch of anger clouded her face. “I was ‘one of the only people she could trust, and she needed me to do this or that to help her. And every single thing she asked me to help her with was some twisty scheme where I didn’t know my real part. Being bait when sniffing out potential traitors, but I was told I was just a trustworthy negotiator. And…” She waved her hands in front of her face angrily. “Shit like that. It sucked, and I hated it, and I left.” She back at Kay sadly. “And I let her drag me into it here.”

“The investigation?”

“Exactly. I wasn’t completely honest with you about that. Alahna sent me a letter saying that she needed a favor and could I please go east to a trade city named Tumbling Rapids and help the Adventurer’s Guild with something there? And it was a job I’d be great at. I didn’t really have any other goals, so I wandered over here. And suddenly, I’m being told that Alahna told the Adventurer’s Guild I was some expert investigator, and could I please help them look into Nelamian actions in the city.” She scowled and hit the table. “And it wasn’t like I could fuck over my cousin’s reputation by telling the damn Adventurer’s Guild that she’s lied to them because I love her even if she is an asshole! So I go along for the ride, doing the best I can with the limited experience I have from looking into anything, and now we’re here.”

Kay nodded. “Right, I know the rest.” He looked down for a minute as he thought. “I guess I’m wondering what this has to do with me maybe not going with you.”

“Well, first of all, I misled you at best and lied to you at worst about my motivations in investigating the Nelamians. I’d be annoyed about that and maybe not want to be with me anymore.”

“I am annoyed, yes, but that isn’t enough to tip the scales away from you.”

“That’s good, but I also didn’t act as a good teacher to you as I could. I let my conflicted loyalties between helping my idiot cousin and teaching you get in the way, and you paid for that in more than one way. If I had actually dedicated all my time to teaching you properly, you would almost definitely be at a higher level in your skills and able to deal with an ambush better.” She said the last part with a deep frown.

Kay grinned. “So you’re taking responsibility for my failures there?”

“Fuck no!” She snapped. “I taught you better than how you performed! I just didn’t teach you the best I could.” She let out a frustrated groan. “Not the time. Anyway! I didn’t pay enough attention to the jobs you were taking and let you go on one that should have been much too dangerous for you for your first solo mission, and a bunch o other small mistakes that I could have been better if I hadn’t let myself get drawn in two different directions. And if I hadn’t been looking into the Nelamians in the first place, you wouldn’t have been kidnapped and then had someone break your arms.”

“That was terrible,” Kay admitted. “But…” He looked up into the air as he slowly talked. “I… I was a normal kid, basically. My mom died when I was really young, and my dad remarried a few years later. My second mom had a baby daughter, and she became my sister.” He let the melancholy of missing them roll over him, then continued. “We were happy. I had great parents and an amazing and adorable little sister. And then they died in an accident.”

Eleniah silently reached forward and grabbed his hand.

He squeezed her hand back. “I was in a horrible place for a long time after that. Depression, mostly. And… I’m still not entirely sure if I would have done it in the end, but I had a lot of suicidal thoughts. My friends helped me out of it. I mean, it was a lot of hard work on my end, but my friends helped me with a huge amount of it. And I learned from them not to abandon my friends.” He looked at her and smiled a small smile. “It sounds pretty damn corny, but you didn’t mean for anything and to happen to me, and you were doing your best to help me and someone who’s family. I’m not going to leave you over that.” Kay chuckled. “Especially not when I apparently need as much training as I still do.”

“Damn fucking straight,” Eleniah said quietly, not meeting Kay’s gaze.

He smiled bigger and reached out with his free hand to pat her arm. “So, you’re still stuck with me for now.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

They sat there in the companionable quiet until Eleniah cleared her throat. “Right. Now that that’s settled, we’re going to go over everything that happened and what you did wrong. To start, the first thing you did wrong was letting yourself get kidnapped in broad daylight in a busy city!”